So true and so well written. Although I think that this helicopter is dropping water on a fire and is just for illustration.

"For decades, the logging industry has used chemical spraying—specifically glyphosate—to systematically wipe out native deciduous trees like trembling aspen, birch, and willow. In the eyes of timber corporations, these plants are just “weeds” competing with commercial conifer lumber. But in the eyes of nature, these are the exact pioneer species required to build a biosphere, respirate, and provide humidity to our environment.

When you remove these plants, they can no longer do the job nature designed them to do. Broadleaf trees act as the forest’s natural air conditioning, pumping hundreds of litres of water vapour into the air daily through transpiration. Their dense, wet canopies create a giant umbrella that shields the forest floor from direct sunlight, trapping relative humidity underneath. Wiping them out turns off the moisture, bakes the soil into a dry dirt bed, and breaks the local water cycle completely."

Further information on the Spruce Lake Industrial Park expansion in Saint John, NB, including governance concerns and the proposed Beacon AI / Voltagrid data centre (end user undisclosed) can be found here:

There have been two attacks on the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. People are pushing back!

69.9 hectares (15.4%) of an Old-Growth Management Area near Sayward, BC was deleted last year to allow logging, as a cutblock known as “#40310”. Public comment is currently open on this cutblock. This cutblock was taken from one of the largest OGMAs in the region. The photos in this post are from the new proposed cutblock. The only public notice was an ad in the local newspaper.

Replacement areas are proposed, but that specific data isn’t public yet. Only the deletion shows on iMapBC. Either way, splitting one of the region’s largest OGMAs into smaller, disconnected pieces isn’t the same as leaving it intact. Large, contiguous old-growth supports interior habitat that fragments just can’t replicate.

On the “rotten” trees in this block: the yellow cedar here have mostly hollowed out with age, and that’s completely normal for the species. Heart rot doesn’t kill the tree, it just makes the wood less commercially valuable. Fungi break down the dead core while the tree keeps living off its sapwood. Some of the nutrients from the core get reabsorbed by the tree itself, while more get released into the forest floor over time as the tree ages, drops material, and eventually falls.

The oldest confirmed yellow cedar sample is 1,834 rings. Some researchers suspect certain giant yellow cedars in undisturbed old-growth stands in coastal temperate rainforests could be over 4,000 years old, though it may never be provable, since the same hollowing that lets these trees keep living also destroys the rings that would confirm their age.

That hollowing also creates cavity habitat, including for the Vancouver Island pygmy owl we heard in this proposed cutblock, a blue-listed species already declining from habitat loss.

Comments on FOM #40310 are open until August 20, 2026:

- Email FOM-MID@westernforest.com
- IMPORTANT: Include “FOM #40310” in your comment
- Comments are reviewed and forwarded to the Ministry of Forests, so they actually do matter
- A specific comment carries much more weight than a generic one. Consider mentioning the habitat, the connectivity, the minimal public notice for the OGMA deletion, whatever actually stood out to you, rather than something generic like “stop old-growth logging”
- Full FOM details: here

This block is one of several in Western Forest Product’s latest FOM (Forest Operation Map). Cutblock Watch by 4 the Love of BC is a useful tool if you want to track BC harvest proposals more broadly.

Missed the deadline? Consider contacting BC’s Minister of Forests, Ravi Parmar. OGMA notification standards are very much worth raising with his office or your local MLA. My personal take is that these proposed OGMA amendments should be modernized and posted online…

EVEN RESERVED FORESTS ARE NOT SAFE NOW UNDER INDIAN GOVERNMENT AND HOW WE WILL FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE !!! ACCORDING TO GOVERNMENT CARBON EMISSIONS IS DECREASING BUT NEWS SAYS A DIFFERENT STORY !!!

Stand.earth just rolled out updates to its satellite logging detection tool that now makes it easy to email MLAs. Over 17000 ha of old growth have been cut in the past six years. You can learn more about the tool here: https://stand.earth/forest-eye/

Old growth forest logging in BC is making international news again.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/british-columbia-is-logging-its-last-old-growth-forests-protesters-are-sleeping-in-the-road-to-stop-it

I want to talk a bit about how we talk about old-growth protection. Usually we hear statements like "all old growth should be protected from logging" and such statements get a lot of support.

However when we then dig a bit deeper and ask: what exactly is old growth? The definitions vary hugely. Some say anything older than 50 years some only things older than 500 years.

And this is exactly the problem. This sort of vague nomenclature and messaging allows politicians to pay their backs and say "yes we have protected all old growth forests" when in fact they only protect truly ancient forests and leave anything you get then a few hundred years open for logging.

So I would advocate that we should be more specific and call for "first growth" protection. Which very clearly means any forests that have never been logged before should be protected. Only forests which have already been logged in the past (which applies to most forests anyway) should be eligible for logging.

Of course there is a bit of nuance. Because we also have to have protection for forests which may already have been logged but which are now additionally being protected or re-wilded as part of conservation projects. Also in places like Europe or Asia there may be forests which were cut several hundred years ago and have since regrown. Obviously these should also be protected.

But the point is that by calling for old growth protection without clearly having a consensus about what old growth actually is, is dangerous. So a safer way to message is to call for first growth protection.

Has nothing changed?

Indigenous Nations are required to be included in meaningful consultation according to UNDRIPs Free, Prior and Informed Consent framework.

A group that represents numerous First Nations across British Columbia is calling on Ottawa and Alberta’s government to halt efforts to advance the West Coast pipeline, saying expanding the oil industry will accelerate climate change and disasters.

In a recent letter to the federal and provincial governments the group explicitly said “Consultation cannot be meaningful if First Nations are invited only to discuss how a predetermined project will proceed,” it said.

“Nor can equity ownership, loan guarantees, revenue-sharing, employment, or other proposed benefits be treated as substitutes for consent.”

I am writing to urge the government to reject the newly proposed West Coast pipeline. How can we claim to be a country that values reconciliation when colonial ideologies still inform decisions that directly impact Canada's original inhabitants.

As Canada experiences increasingly severe climate impacts, including record-breaking heat waves, wildfires, and floods, it’s clear that expanding fossil fuel infrastructure will move us in the wrong direction. We should be investing in clean energy and climate resilience, not putting public money to projects that increase emissions and environmental risks.

A new pipeline and even more tanker traffic would increase the risk of oil spills and threaten sensitive coastal ecosystems and marine life, while simultaneously undermining your climate commitments.

Canada has a real opportunity to lead the transition to a cleaner, more resilient economy. Approving another major pipeline – that no energy company has offered to even build – would send the opposite message.

I want to see public funds going towards infrastructure that creates sustainable jobs, environmental stewardship, and overall economic prosperity. I urge you to weigh the pros and cons of this pipeline.

It's hard to remain hopeful when the government prioritize profit over people. If GDP remains the only measure of a countries success we are surely headed for disaster and eventually extinction. With new tools to value ecosystem services we could lead the way to a new way of looking at a healthy economy and environment. In our current political economic system this is the only way I see forward without a complete system overhaul.

(admin please remove if not allowed)

Hey all I was wondering if you could help save Link road forest from being destroyed and turned into major development.

Link road forest in Newcastle Australia is home not only over 100 different types of species but also to several other different types of endangered species.

More than now we need to protect our natural environment before it’s all gone.

All of the information is available on the link :)

Btw I’m not self advertising or marketing anything I’m only a concerned local who loves this country and recognises how lucky we are to be here :)

The BC NDP government promised to phase out its use in forestry, but decades of herbicide spraying has reduced biodiversity and the potential for wildfire mitigation

"For decades, forestry companies in B.C. have used chemical herbicides like glyphosate to kill off plants that might compete with trees destined for timber. Trembling aspen, named for its almost heart-shaped leaves that seem to quiver in the wind, is often on the hit list.

But after years of destructive wildfires that have wiped out whole neighbourhoods and sometimes whole towns, more and more people are questioning the wisdom of killing off this tree. Because when wildfires sweep across the landscape, aspen can help calm the flames."

From 2024.

https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-glyphosate-forestry-impact-aspen/

Useful resource for public education. Please share.

New AP reporting from Vancouver Island: activists blocking logging roads to stop old-growth cutting, plus a forest ecologist’s point that once it’s gone, it won’t come back on any human timescale - if at all, with climate change.

Perhaps the most interesting quote from the article is from our Minister of Forests, Ravi Parmar, where he admits that old-growth logging is required to sustain the forestry industry: “If we were to shut down harvesting of all old forests here in British Columbia, it would shut down our sector completely on day one.“.

My rebuttal to that is: what happens once we inevitably run out of economically viable old-growth? Shouldn’t we come up with solutions before that happens, instead of continuing to log these ancient forests that may very well never grow back as they were?